Zane x Rikki House
by bekeyboo
Summary: A collection of Zane x Rikki oneshots from prompts from a random word generator. All of them will be fluffy, and this will pretend the series ended after season 2. R&R please!
1. Hook

Chapter One: Hook-

Rikki, Emma, and Cleo knew to be careful.

It was trout season, after all, and the waters were always thick with them. Big, iron boats with shredding motors that could savage a marine mammal if they weren't careful.

Sadly, mermaids counted as marine mammals.

Thankfully, the boats didn't use sonar, so they could visit Mako pretty much unhindered. Rikki was feeling like a swim, so she told Zane to meet her at Mako for a date.

It should have gone well.

However, Rikki approached a fishing boat in what they liked to call 'hyperspeed', where pretty much nothing could catch them. Rikki took a carefully calculated turn to kiss the edge of the boat and avoid the motor. Rikki loved kissing the boats- it gave her a massive surge of adrenaline to be so close to something that could kill her in a moment.

She forgot to take into account the fishing hooks. The boat she happened to be skidding past had lowered one that had no lure. At the rate she was going, it didn't stop her and it probably didn't even tug too hard on the fisherman holding the pole.

What it did do was tear a chunk out of her shoulder. As she was swimming straight toward shark-infested waters. Damn.

Rikki kept swimming, using her ability to superheat the water around her. It didn't affect her, of course, but one unlucky and blood-lusting shark got its nose broiled because it made the poor choice of trying to attack the injured mermaid.

A little ways off Mako, well past the fishermen, Rikki knew she couldn't make it. The side effect of hyperspeed is a super-sped up heartbeat. Like running. While this got her to the safety of the Moonpool and Zane faster, it also made her bleed to death faster.

Rikki didn't know what to do. Speed up and bleed to death on the way to Mako, or slow down and bleed to death on the way to Mako?

She treaded water for a minute, watching blood pool between the fingers of the hand she had clenched to her wound.

She felt her head go weak. This is it. This is the end. A stupid fishing hook killed me, she thought.

She blacked out.

"Oh, thank God, she's waking up!" said a very familiar voice. In her drowsy state, Rikki knew that it was someone she knew well, someone she liked, but the name evaded her.

Wasn't I… bleeding a lot? thought Rikki. She tried to pull a hand up to her injured left shoulder, but it made her heart beat and her arm weak, so she dropped it.

Instead, she tried opening her eyes. The first attempt was pretty much a failure, with almost no light getting in. The second attempt, she got a flash of white wall and a hospital bed. By the third or fourth attempt, she could fully take in the scene around her.

She felt a person grab her hand and kiss her fingers. With effort, she turned her head to Zane.

"Zane? Wuh-" Rikki couldn't articulate. Why the hell am I so drowsy? she thought. Doing anything required so much more effort than she remembered.

"You gave us a right scare there," he said. "You were taking forever to get to Mako, so I went out on the way you should've gone and found you lying in a pool of hot, bloody water. Scared me to death."

Rikki looked down at her shoulder. She was right. She had bled a lot. All she saw was a sterile white bandage circling her upper arm and shoulder muscles.

Wrinkling her brow, Rikki managed, "Saved me… thank you…"

"Shh," came the reply, "rest a little. You had twenty stitches in your arm. Sleep."

Rikki furrowed her brow. This was Zane. "I love you Zane," she breathed.

With a slight tremor in his voice, he replied, "I love you too. Get some sleep."

The suggestion sounded so good, especially from Zane, that she took it.

The next time she woke, the drowsiness was gone. Rikki shot up, for a second caught up in the remembered adrenaline of her last crystal-clear memory, panting hard.

Zane's warm hand pushed her back down. "No. You almost bled to death, even the great Rikki has to rest a little."

Rikki grudgingly yielded, not wanting to admit how good it felt to relax into the pillows. "Damn fishing hook."

Mirth lit in Zane's worried eyes. "Is that how it happened?"

"Yeah. Didn't even run into a motor or anything noble like that. Just one hook and I was a goner," Rikki admitted.

A nurse in a sterile white uniform strolled in, holding a clipboard. "Miss Rikki, you have some worried friends who'd like to see you."

Rikki blanched. "Why did Zane get to come in and the others didn't?"

The nurse frowned at Zane. "This young man picked the lock and broke into your room over twelve times. Your other friends only accompanied him on the first attempt. Eventually, we decided to simply let him stay here. He hasn't left for long since we let him in. Should I go fetch your other friends?"

"Yeah," Rikki said to the nurse, glancing at her before redirecting her stare to Zane.

She loved her friends. She loved her dad. But Zane, her wonderful boyfriend staring at her with eyes brimming with concern was different. Her friends and her dad always wanted to do what was best for her. Zane wanted to be with her, to give her what she wanted no matter what.

Leaning over to kiss him, she murmured, "I love you Zane."

After a brief kiss, to her consternation, he replied, "So I've heard. I love you too."

Rikki considered pressing the topic, but Zane chose that moment to resume kissing her. Eh, that could wait. Zane probably wouldn't.


	2. Swallow

Chapter Two: Swallow-

Rikki and Zane had decided to go to the county fair that weekend- if nothing else, it would be fun to laugh at all the 'exhibits' and goof off at the kiddie games.

They were walking hand in hand, licking snow cones (because what else did you do during an Australian summer at a noticeably shade-less county fair?), laughing, when Rikki noticed the sign. It wasn't particularly big, or bright, but it was handpainted and read, "Hot-Dog Eating Contest. All Patrons Graitfully Accepted."

Behind it sat two little boys, a package of ready-to-grill hot dogs, buns, and a grill. It was totally deserted.

Rikki stopped laughing and unashamedly stared at the humble sign. Zane noticed and looked over at it as well.

"What are you thinking?" Zane asked as she started walking towards it.

Rikki looked over at him. "What are they doing? Why are they there?"

With that, she strode up to the stall made of repurposed cardboard boxes and asked, "When is that?" while pointing to the sign.

Now that she was closer to the little boys, she saw they were in scout uniforms, from one of the clubs nearby. They were like the Boy Scouts in America- always running about outdoors and trying to earn badges.

The slightly older of the two cleared his throat and said, "Well, we haven't had any volunteers, so… whenever someone finally volunteers."

"Why are you holding a hot-dog eating contest?" she responded.

The younger one pointed to his sash. Rikki noticed both his and his friend's were almost bare. "We wanted to hold a stall, to earn a badge. But it's not working."

Rikki sighed. She knew where this was going and she wasn't sure she liked it. "Is there an admission fee?"

The two boys looked at each other in excitement. "Five dollars," said the older one. "We have customers!" he whispered loudly to his little friend.

Rikki pretended not to notice as she fished out ten dollars out of her purse. She handed the crumpled bill to the older boy, who placed it reverently into an empty shoebox. He then pulled out a load of hotdogs and started grilling.

"Whoa, Rikki," Zane said, circling his arms around her waist. "I don't recall volunteering."

"Free food," Rikki explained, "and come on, they're scouts. You're just afraid I'm going to beat you."

Zane snorted. "Yeah, right, sure, that's it."

Rikki stepped back, smiling. "You don't think I can win?"

"No, I know you can't win," Zane explained.

"Oh, you're on!" Rikki said, taking a seat at the boys' 'official eatin' table'. Zane sat next to her, and the younger of the two boys walked over and began explaining the rules.

"There will be forty hot-dogs on the table. You will have fifteen minutes to eat as many as possible. My brother and I will be keeping tally, and the winner gets this badge," he explained, pulling out a blue bage made out of a blue ribbon scrap and a safety pin.

To the boy, Rikki said, "You can just give that to me now, there's no way my log of a boyfriend here will ever be able to beat me."

Zane chuckled. "Oh-ho, you're still on that delusion? You don't have a chance."

Rikki, smelling the cooking hot-dogs in the air, replied, "Let's give it a go, then."

Sure enough, the older boy was back quickly with a massive plate heaped with hot-dogs, and another heaped with buns. By now, a couple of people had been attracted by the smell of cooking meat. While most had passed on, a few had stayed, sitting on the rough benches in the 'official watchin' area', marked by rope.

"Ready?" asked the older boy. Rikki and Zane nodded, game faces on.

"Go!" said the younger, clicking his stopwatch.

Zane had immediately placed a hot-dog in a bun and was eating it in large bites. Rikki hadn't bothered opening the bun- she had shoved the bun and the hot-dog together and began frantically shoving it into her mouth with one hand, the other preparing the next hot-dog.

The people watching began laughing- the big, tough, bad-ass-looking teenage boy was currently two bites behind his blonde wisp of a girlfriend.

Their laughs attracted a couple more viewers, as did Rikki and Zane themselves. While Rikki had a maniac focus on shoveling food into her mouth, Zane was watching her and stifling chuckles of his own.

By the time the five minute mark had passed, Rikki was a full hot dog ahead and the waiting area was getting pretty full. Rikki had gotten slightly bored of maniac focus and had decided to start making dinosaur noises as she ate- "Arrrmmphffff. Grrrorwl."

Zane couldn't help himself. He started laughing and choking and making dinosaur noises himself. The boys looked at each other, and quickly painted the word, "Dinosaur" above their sign, making it read, "Dinosaur Hot-Dog Eating Contest."

This, along with the laughter of the crowd, the noises of Rikki and Zane, pulled a massive crowd, threatening to fall out of the watching area, by the last minute.

By this point, Rikki and Zane were having an unspoken, no-holds-barred, make-each-other-laugh contest. Rikki's face and hair were coated in grease, Zane was eating three hot-dogs at once, and they were both growling.

The younger boy was on the ground in hysterics, but the older one was diligently keeping tallies- Zane had pulled forward, so Rikki was only ahead by two. If Zane managed to finish all three of his hot-dogs in the time it took Rikki to finish hers, they would tie.

As the final seconds ticked down, Rikki finished her hotdog and had shoved another hot-dog whole into her mouth. Zane had just finished his three and was swallowing a couple of times, to get them down. Rikki was desperately trying to chew.

The 'buzzer' (the older boy saying, "Buzz!) sounded, and Zane looked to the older boy for a rule clarification. "If she can swallow it," he said, "she wins."

The younger boy, who had gotten over his giggling fit, started chanting, "Swallow! Swallow! Swallow!"

The massive crowd picked up on it. "Swallow! Swallow! Swallow!"

Rikki almost spewed out barely-chewed hot-dog right then and there, but she kept it in. She chewed and swallowed for about a minute, then stuck her tongue out at Zane. "I win."

He feinted at poking her in the stomach, and instead grabbed her into a hug. "Do you? Do you really?" The older boy had just pinned the homemade ribbon onto her shirtsleeve as she looked at Zane questioningly.

He bit back a laugh. "You can eat more than your older, male, boyfriend. Is that really an achievement?"

Instead of answering so tricky a question, Rikki kissed him, and though they both recoiled slightly at the hot-dog on each other's breath, the crowd went wild.

The stand was stampeded with volunteers for the next contest, but Rikki and Zane didn't notice. They were too busy kissing and laughing while trying to get themselves hot-dog-grease free.


	3. Chop

Chapter Three: Chop

"I'm going fishing," Zane proclaimed proudly one afternoon in the JuiceNet Café. Rikki just about choked on her juice, and, after she had cleared her windpipe, gaped at him. "If Lewis can do it, I can do it," he explained.

"You're joking," Rikki said flatly, sitting back and sucking down her juice.

"No," Zane said, "I mean it. Got a fishing rod and everything. What I wanted to ask you was, are you in?"

"Now you're really joking."

Zane shrugged. "I may have told Lewis when he was bragging about his catch that it wasn't so hard and so he challenged me to catch more in an afternoon, and I figured it'd be less mind-numbingly boring if you were there."

Rikki quirked up one side of her mouth in a half-smile. "I have a slightly different version of that plan in mind."

And so that's why Zane was sitting in his boat off the coast of Mako Island with a mermaid clinging to the side. It may be weird and he would definitely never tell Rikki, but Zane almost liked her better as a mermaid. Not only did she smile more and seem more at peace, she was beautiful. Not that she wasn't when she was human, but something about the tail…

"Ready?" she asked, treading water with thrusts of said tail, breaking him out of his reverie, "or do you need to stare at your mermaid girlfriend some more?"

She'd caught him, he thought. She was smiling in earnest now. "Nah, I can do that later," Zane said. "Let's catch some fish!"

About two hours and twenty-odd fish later, Rikki and Zane were anxious to go back and rub it in Lewis' face. After all, he could've cheated too. He had a mermaid girlfriend too. So it was almost fair.

Rikki grabbed the ropes on the side of the boat and told Zane, "Help me up." He grabbed her by the armpits and lugged her onto his boat. She stayed flopped for a second, panting, before drying herself off with her power and turning back into a human.

"Aw!" Zane complained lightly, but Rikki smacked him lightly and told him to step on it.

"Wow," Lewis said, looking at their catch of the day, "This is a ton. You were right, Zane, and I'm sorry."

Lewis extended his hand and Zane shook it with a wink at Rikki. "Well, Lewis, this is just the skill of a superior fisherman coming through. It was bound to happen eventually."

Lewis blanched slightly. "When'd you get into fishing?" he asked conversationally.

"About the same time I got a mermaid girlfriend," Zane replied, pulling Rikki in for a hug.

Lewis smiled. "Well, if you're such a master fisherman, I assume you know how to grill us up some fish? I know how much the girls love seafood, especially now that full-moon madness just ended."

Zane's mildly arrogant smile melted. Cleo and Emma were smiling blandly and nodding behind Lewis.

He'd been had.

"Yeah," Rikki said, "Zane makes me seafood all the time. Come on, Zane."

She picked up their catch and towed him towards the grill. A chopping board and knife were already there. "I assume you don't know how to dress a fish?" she asked.

Zane shook his head no.

Rikki sighed. She pulled each fish onto the board, and with a quick chop, she decapitated it. After a half hour of chops, squelches, and wet thuds, Rikki looked like she was about to be sick.

She turned to Zane. "You know what I think? I think you got me into this mess."

"Mm-hmm," Zane said, afraid to do anything else.

"And because you couldn't pay the price to Lewis, I think you should pay it to me."

"Mm-hmm," Zane said warily. She lunged. He jumped sideways, but not after Rikki had 'chopped' his side with her hand.

He feinted to her left, and she curled to protect it, exposing her right, which he chopped.

She giggled.

A full-scale chop-war ensued. The climax was Rikki wielding both her hands, chasing Zane through the house.

Lewis just popped the cap on his soda and took a sip. This revenge worked.

Meanwhile, out in the garden, Zane had tripped and curled into the fetal position. Rikki sat on him chopped him on the back a couple of times, just to show him who's boss, then got up. The second he was released, he sprang up and grabbed her around the waist.

Easily looping one arm around her waist, his other hand chopped her torso and stomach repeatedly. "Gotcha," he whispered in her ear. She giggled again, and the sound was so pleasant that Zane decided to tickle her.

After about a minute, RIkki was able to gasp through laughs, "Stop… I'll do anything!"

Zane's hands froze. "Anything?"

"Anything."

Zane spun her around and kissed her.

Rikki quite liked this punishment.

**By the way, I'm sorry for 1) the delay in posting this chapter, 2) the shortness of this chapter, and 3) the lameness of this chapter. I'm hoping to update every other day, but that's a lofty goal and is right now just trying to keep me on track. **

**xoxo,  
>bekeyboo ;)<strong>


	4. Press

Chapter Four: Press

Rikki sat down to eat her breakfast at ten A.M. on a Sunday morning. Her dad had left the newspaper out, and, doing nothing but chewing her cereal, Rikki decided to flip through it.

Shootings, robbery, uplifting stories- nothing caught Rikki's eye until she saw a picture. It wasn't very large, or in-color, and it was hidden in the back, where people wrote in to… someone and the someone replied. It was either Dear Abby or letters to the editor, but Rikki didn't really care enough to check.

Blood draining from her face, Rikki got up and fetched the good scissors from a nearby drawer, and cut out the picture and the letter/response pertaining to it.

And she ran to Zane's.

As she ran, she looked at the incredibly accurate drawing of a mermaid tail.

She reached Zane's house fifteen minutes later, out of breath from running too hard. She pounded on the door.

"Who- oh, hello, Rikki," Zane's father said upon opening it.

She stepped inside. "Where's Zane?" she asked, looking at him expectantly.

He blinked. "Young lady, that is no way to-"

"Where. Is. Zane?" Rikki demanded.

"Young lady-"

"Fine," Rikki spat, and ran up the stairs and down the hallway to Zane's bedroom. He was still fast asleep in bed, but Rikki was in no mood to be patient. She flipped on his lights, pulled the comforter off him, and shook his shoulder.

"Whuzzgoinon?" he murmured, squinting into the bright light. "Mmm. Hi, Rikki."

"What the hell is this?" she asked, shoving the newspaper clipping in his face.

He was smart enough not to immediately reply, and instead sat up right and stretched. While Zane was waking himself up, his father came to stand in the doorway. "Rikki," he said, "what are you-"

And she slammed the door in his face.

She whirled around and stalked back to Zane. "Kay, you've woken up now. What the hell is this?"

He squinted at it, turned it around, and said, "That's a newspaper clipping, Rikki, what did you think it was?"

She glared at him. "And what, may I ask, is ON the newspaper clipping?"

He looked back to the piece of paper in his hand, recognition dawning in his eyes and blood draining from his face. "I told them not to publish this."

Rikki just about exploded. "So, you drew this and wrote the letter, submitted it, and you figured just because you asked, they'd pull it? Press is really bad for us, Zane, really bad."

She continued lecturing him while Zane read the reply. His letter showed the advice columnist the picture and asked if he thought it could be a mermaid or a sea monster, telling him the times he'd seen the mermaid. The reply was:

_Dear Believer, mermaids only exist in fantasies. If this alleged mermaid came to you in a life-or-death situation, especially if you were running out of oxygen, you may have seen something perfectly normal and come up with a fantastic explanation. For example, this may have been an eel with a fungal disease turning it orange. As to your allegation that you saw a woman with red hair and an orange tail, some teenagers are notorious pranksters. They may have heard about your fascination with mermaids and chosen to dress up in a costume to scare you. There are no such things as mermaids._

"Rikki," he interrupted, "did you read their reply?"

She shot him a look and took back the paper. Her blue eyes skimmed through the paragraph, and, when she had finished, those same eyes looked up at him sheepishly.

"I wasn't really in a state to read it when I saw Emma's tail on the news for everyone to see," Rikki explained. "When did you submit this, anyway?"

"Right before that doctor caught you all on film."

Rikki heaved a sigh of relief. "Good. Never do that again."

Zane crossed his legs and asked, "Why are you all afraid of everyone finding out? You're not gonna get teased or anything- I think your tail is beautiful."

Rikki chuckled and replied, "Thanks, I like it too. But do you remember how that doctor trapped us in a cage? I don't want to live my life in a cage."

"I wouldn't either," Zane replied.

Rikki grinned at him. "Want to go for a swim? Meet you by the JuiceNet in ten."

"Sure," Zane said, grinning back as his mermaid walked out of his room, panic forgotten.

**So this one's short- like, really short, only 750 words, but I like it. Please review.**

**xoxo,  
>bekeyboo ;)<strong>


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